St. George's Episcopal Church |
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Joel 2:1-2, 12-17
Psalm 103:8-14
2 Corinthians 5:20b-21, 6:1-10
Matthew 6:1-6; 6:16-21
From the Revised Common Lectionary as Adapted for Use by the Episcopal Church
and Authorized by the 74th General Convention of the ECUSA
"Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. "So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. "And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. "And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:1-6; 6:16-21)
God's Work, or Our Work?
The Rev. Dr. Bill Stroop, Rector
The season of Lent begins today, Ash Wednesday. In the early church, Lent was a time for new members to learn about The Way, as Christianity was called. It was a time for those new to the faith, called catechumenates, to learn, study, reflect and pray as they prepared themselves for Easter Eve when they would receive Holy Baptism, the first sacrament of their new life in Christ. Catechumenates were required to fast for the forty days between Ash Wednesday and Easter as they spiritually prepared themselves. They were allowed to attend church and hear the first part of the worship service (the so-called "Mass of the Catechumens" or the "Ante-Communion") with their fully initiated brethren, but were either dismissed before Eucharist or not taken to a separate site where the Eucharist was received by the rest of the assembly (the so-called "Anaphora" of the mass). This was to fulfill the doctrine that Baptism was the rite of initiation into the Christian faith, and a necessary pre-requisite to proper reception of Holy Communion. First Communion of catechumenates took place on Easter morning.
In the Western Church, Lent was also a time of penance, during which people who had committed particularly notorious acts performed acts of contrition. Once someone with appropriate ecclesiastical authority had been satisfied that proper contrition had been achieved, the penitent was readmitted into fellowship at Holy Communion with other communicants in the church. And indeed, our church still has provision for denying communion to people who have committed certain kinds of acts, and readmitting those persons into community after they have performed restitution (see the Book of Common Prayer, page 409).
Whether a notorious sinner, a catechumenate, or a rank-and-file member of the parish, Lent is traditionally observed by fasting, almsgiving, acts of penance, and other forms of disciplined spiritual devotion. The solemnity and seriousness of Lent is reflected in our corporate worship by the absence of the alleluias and other joyful music, the omission of The Gloria in Excelsis and the Te Deum, and the replacement of our grander fixtures and vessels of Holy Communion with simpler implements.
In the modern western Churches, where we have given preference to infant baptism since the sixth century, emphasis on Lent as preparation for baptism declined in favor of general penitential practices in anticipation of the Pascal Feast of Easter. We pray that our faith will be strengthened and our zeal reinvigorated.
All of this language about preparing ourselves for Eastertide seems to suggest that we need to do things to win God's favor. But do we need to prove our worthiness to God? Are we not created in the image of God warts and all and therefore acceptable to God?
In the Christian tradition, the word "grace" sums up the relationship between God and creation. Grace is considered to be the means by which creation is brought into communion with the creator God. Since Christian doctrine, worship, and life are all shaped by the way grace is understood, and since grace determines our understanding of divine action and its relationship to human action, we need to look at what we do as we move into Lent.
In the Gospel lesson today, Jesus speaks about human action in terms of praying, fasting, and almsgiving. Jesus commends these actions when he says "Whenever you do these things " In and of themselves, Jesus suggests that doing things that help others, like prayer and almsgiving, or that help oneself, like fasting, are reasonable and important things for humans to do. But, Jesus exhorts us to look carefully at why we do these things. Do we do them for recognition or praise, or do we do them because we want to? And why do we want to do them anyway?
What Jesus asks us to do is to examine our motives. In essence, he asks us to completely transform our hearts and minds in ways that bring about a powerful change in the relationship between God and the human person.
And fundamentally, that change is based on trust. All of Jesus life and ministry including his death and resurrection all speak to God's love for us. God loves us, and no amount of good deeds will increase God's love for us. God's love is the given. And with God's love, comes God's grace. Grace is God's work alone. We cannot contribute anything to our own salvation other than this and this is crucial: We must trust that God's self-giving love for us in the person of Jesus Christ is sufficient for our salvation. It is belief in the Truth of God's unconditional love for us that stimulates the faithful to give alms freely, to pray for one's enemies, and do other pious acts.
Sometimes we do things during Lent, believing that by doing them we will benefit from the rigors of taking on a discipline. But the problem again has to do with motive. If I take up something as a discipline, and I fail, I will feel an inordinate amount of guilt about it. If I promise to give up something, and I succeed, then I might begin to feel some self-righteous smugness. Sometimes we might engage in so many activities during Lent that we become slaves to time, and forget the reason we undertook the activities in the first place. We become easily distracted and we lose focus of the very things we set out to accomplish.
To prepare for Easter and to have a Holy Lent is to seek to grow in our relation with God, to be more open to God's presence in our lives, and to love God more and more in our hearts. Lent is a time to reorient, and restructure our lives and to examine our motives for our actions. It is not what we do in our outward lives that matters; but, rather it is what happens within each of us as we seek to know and be known by God.
But even if our motives seem good and honorable, sometimes we just don't do what is good. St. Paul said it best when he wrote, "Now I do not the good I desire, but rather the evil that I do not desire. Now if I should do what I do not wish to do it is not that I do it, but rather sin that swells within me." As Paul Tillich once wrote about this, Paul experienced "the split between his conscious will and his real will, between himself and something strange and alien within him. Humankind seems to always be split against itself through aggression, hate, enmity, and despair. It is the mixture of self-love and self hate that permanently pursues us, and prevents us from loving others, and that prohibits us from losing ourselves in the love with which we are loved eternally."[1]
The season of Lent has to do with refocusing our lives and with growing in grace. It is a good time to banish illusions and to restore priorities. It is a time to control the strutting peacock in every one of us. It is a time to discern what we value most, which is hopefully the God who made us and calls to us through the Gospel. It is a time to clear away the stuff that prevents us from feeling God's love, and that impedes our growth in God's grace.
So as we begin this Lenten season, let us pray that we will clear away that which impedes our growth. Let us pray that our inner Christ will grow and outshine our personal doing, so that what we do becomes God's work. Let us pray that we will become able to bring Christ into the world both individually and as his body.
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Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the LORD is coming, it is near--a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness spread upon the mountains a great and powerful army comes; their like has never been from of old, nor will be again after them in ages to come. Yet even now, says the LORD, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the LORD, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the LORD, your God? Blow the trumpet in Zion; sanctify a fast; call a solemn assembly; gather the people. Sanctify the congregation; assemble the aged; gather the children, even infants at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her canopy. Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep. Let them say, "Spare your people, O LORD, and do not make your heritage a mockery, a byword among the nations. Why should it be said among the peoples, 'Where is their God?'"
8 The Lord is full of compassion and mercy, *
slow to anger and of great kindness.
9 He will not always accuse us, *
nor will he keep his anger for ever.
10 He has not dealt with us according to our sins, *
nor rewarded us according to our wickedness.
11 For as the heavens are high above the earth, *
so is his mercy great upon those who fear him.
12 As far as the east is from the west, *
so far has he removed our sins from us.
13 As a father cares for his children, *
so does the Lord care for those who fear him.
14 For he himself knows whereof we are made; *
he remembers that we are but dust.
2 Corinthians 5:20b-21, 6:1-10
We entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain. For he says, "At an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you." See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation! We are putting no obstacle in anyone's way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see--we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.
"Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. "So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. "And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. "And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.